


Into the Storm

by bioticbootyshaker



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-18
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-02-05 05:09:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1806460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioticbootyshaker/pseuds/bioticbootyshaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leaving Kirkwall behind, Fenris moves north towards Minrathous to find and kill his former master.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreadwulf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreadwulf/gifts).



Into the Storm

 

Fenris knew that he was making a mistake, but there was nothing he could do to correct himself. It was a mistake that had to be made, unless he wanted to drag everyone else into his problems. Hawke promised she would help him, that she was determined to strike a blow at Danarius’ heart and rid the world of the magister; but Hawke was only one woman, and she had her own issues to handle. He had no doubt that eventually, when Danarius found him in the city, Hawke would be at his side — the question was, did he really want to wait around?

_There comes a time where you must stop running. Where you must turn and face the tiger._

That time came sooner than Fenris expected, but when it came, he couldn’t ignore it. Danarius had stolen more than his freedom; he had taken something Fenris couldn’t name. Some strange, bittersweet mixture of innocence and faith and trust that made his heart ache to think of. His mind might have remembered nothing before the ritual had been done, but his heart certainly did. It could remember warmth, tenderness, love — and it would not return to chains. 

He slipped from the city in the middle of the night, alerting no one to his motives. Most likely he wouldn’t be missed. He wanted to pretend that they would worry for him, that they might wonder where he’d gone, and — in a fit of romantic pique — he wanted to pretend that they would come after him. But the truth of the matter was he had not made himself known to them, not really, not completely. He remained in shadows, and they could never quite reach him. They would lose nothing more than someone barely glimpsed from the corner of their eye.

The night was cold. Fenris wrapped his cloak tight around his shoulders, pulling the hood up to protect his face from the biting wind, and moved further from the city. 

****

The Nevarran wilderness proved more of a challenge than he’d expected. The cold was intense, so much that his cloak was not enough protection against its bitter sting. He possessed nothing heavier than the scrap of cloth, however, and all he could do was bundle himself up inside of it and keep moving forward. He had managed to steal enough coin to pay for a carriage, but the driver had abandoned the vehicle when they’d neared the Silent Plains; spouting some superstitious nonsense about fabled beasts and monsters. Fenris knew nothing about driving a carriage, and even less about the Plains, but he refused to give up. 

Danarius would never stop hunting him. Things could only end with one or the both of them dead. If he marched to his own death, so be it. Better to die without the collar at his throat and the chains at his wrists. Better to stand and fight and die free.

Still, it was cold, and his horses were hungry and overworked; and, more shamefully, he was lonely. He hadn’t heard another person’s voice in more than two weeks. Fenris prided himself on his independence, but he was not made of stone and ice. He had the same desires everyone else did — even if the only desire was for conversation, for someone to tell him that he wasn’t wasting his time. He wondered, as he rode and the Plains stretched out eternally ahead of him, what they were all doing. He wondered if Hawke had seated herself as Viscountess yet, or if she had simply quit the city in the same fashion as him. He wondered if the damnable mage had done something drastic, if the fire and fury of his anger had finally become too much. He wondered about them all — Aveline with armor over her body and heart, Varric with his pen and wry smile and stories under his heart that would never be told, Merrill and her mirror and her own loss of innocence.

He wondered if Sebastian had retaken his lands, if he was out there somewhere, in a castle or a chantry or somewhere in-between, worrying for him.

He wondered if Isabela sailed the seas, searching for him.

But he gave in to no delusions. They would think of him very little, if at all. 

****

Camp was made quickly, his supper eaten with the same speed. The wind whistled around him — what felt like _through_ him, with its sharpness and bitterness — and he huddled inside of his tent with his cloak wrapped tightly around his shoulders and face. He looked at his hands as they trembled, and he was reminded of how heavy his wrists had once been, held with cuffs and chains. He was reminded of how his fingers had once trembled when he had heard boots echoing down the hall towards his room, how small and frightened he had been, how lost and hopeless. 

He was no longer the boy he had once been. Fenris guessed that if he told himself that often enough, it would begin to feel true. 

Strange; loneliness rested heavily on him. It was an anchor tethered to his heart, a hollow ache deep in his bones. Before he had reached Kirkwall, loneliness had been a way of life, a certainty that he had — with little struggle — accepted. Better to be lonesome than leashed to a cruel master, better to ache for the touch and voices of others than to ever leave himself exposed. Now, after meeting them all, after journeying with them, after finding warmth and generosity in their camaraderie, Fenris felt the brutal power of his own loneliness. It choked him, stung at his eyes, twisted like a knife in the center of his chest. He sighed heavily and laid down, closing his eyes against the sting — he felt tears on his face, and closed his eyes tighter. They had ruined him, turned him into something craven, something that hungered for the presence of others. 

Damn them. 

****

There was rustling at the opening of his tent. In the haze of his half-sleep, Fenris assumed it was the wind, not content to whistle outside. Then he heard the crunch of boots on snow, the subtle shift of fabric against skin, even over the din of the storm. His ears were so attuned to the sound of another person, so focused on finding a threat, that he could blame nothing on the wind for long. 

He sat up quickly, though not so quickly as to alert whoever stood outside of his tent that they had roused him. His hand gripped the hilt of his sword, his eyes — though sleepy — were sharp, watching the mouth of his tent flap and flutter in the gale. He waited for the shape of a body to step into his view, for a silhouette to be revealed against the moonlight. His fingers tightened and relaxed over the hilt, his lips tight against his teeth. The person outside would have to enter sooner or later. It was far too cold for them to wait, and there was too little visibility for them to press on with his carriage. 

They entered, finally. Fenris caught a flash of golden eyes and gold at her throat before his sword was out.

“Stop,” he ordered. “Or I will cut you down.”

Laughter.

He had never been _laughed at_ ; not when he possessed a sword longer than his body, and wielded it with such skill. The person was obviously mad — why else would they be out in such a storm? — and he was without options. Short of tossing them out into the storm or cutting them down as he had promised, there was little he could do with such a person. 

“Put that thing away before you hurt someone, sweetheart,” the stranger whispered. 

_Isabela_. 

Fenris knew he must be dreaming. There was no way Isabela had trailed him all the way to the Nevarran Plains. There was no way she would risk her own life to chase him across the country. Obviously he was so lonely, so desperate for human interaction, so desperate for _her_ , that he had dreamed her into the space of his tent. His fingers released his sword, and he closed his eyes when fingers threaded through his hair. Surely when he opened them again, she would be gone, the ghostly touch of her hand nothing but a haunting dream. Yet when his eyes opened, she remained, smiling down at him, her fingers curling tight against his scalp before relaxing and sliding to the nape of his neck.

“I should kick your ass,” Isabela said. She knelt down, the look in her gold eyes too tender for the words to have any impact. She rested her brow against his, lightly curling her nails against his neck. “You left without saying goodbye.”

He could still hardly believe that she was there. When he spoke, his voice was small, timid, trembling. He hardly cared how he sounded. Feeling her fingers against him, and the warmth of her brow, he hardly cared about anything else. “I only… I wanted to keep you from this, to—”

“Keep me from what?” Isabela asked. “Going back to Minrathous to kill the bastard that hurt you? It’s a ridiculous plan, you know. It’ll never work.”

“I refuse to sit and wait for him to strike,” Fenris said. “I refuse to be some simpering little—”

“I’m in,” Isabela said. “I don’t have high hopes, mind you, but I don’t want you facing this alone.”

What she said next surprised him, shocked him into silence.

“Just tell me what you want,” Isabela whispered. “Please, Fenris.”

What he wanted was to have his memories. To have his family and home. To not carry the chains he had worn on his wrists and throat around his heart. To sleep deeply, without dreams that haunted him. To laugh without fear, to _love_ without fear, to _live_ without fear.

To lose himself in her eyes, and never worry that he might never be able to find himself again.

Yet the words that came to his lips were not of pain and fear. They were warm, soft against the shape of her lips. 

“I want to go home,” Fenris whispered. “I want to go home with you.”

It made no sense. He had journeyed so far, had braved the wind and cold and snow and loneliness and the quaking of his very bones. Yet when he was near her, under the warmth of her hands, against the heat of her body, so close to the promise of her lips, it didn’t matter. He wanted to go _home._ The word was foreign to him, alien on his tongue; yet his heart beat faster with the sound of it. 

Isabela’s kiss was soft and gentle against his brow. She didn’t ask him why he had changed his mind so suddenly, or why he would abandon such an important task, or what he planned to do when Danarius finally found him. She simply held him as the wind howled outside, and whispered against his skin: _Let’s go._

**Author's Note:**

> Written for rubyvroom on tumblr!


End file.
